West UP rally: Amit Shah invokes Kairana ‘exodus’; praises Yogi Adityanath for law and order

He said, “I want to congratulate Yogi-ji for completely freeing all of western UP of gunda, mafia, and elements that used to rule…. There was a time when not only were there riots here but women had to be sent to other states to study…. Today, no mother, no sister or daughter in western UP needs to go outside for studies — no one dares misbehave with them.”

Adityanath said: “There were riots in Muzaffarnagar; in Saharanpur who has not seen how shops and establishments of Sikhs were set on fire and work was done to push Saharanpur into the fire of riots? There were riots in Bijnor, riots in Bareilly, and months of curfew because as a result. There were also attacks on our faith. During ‘saawan’ it was said that kanwar yatra will not be allowed, and if a daughter asked for security, they would go unheard.

Shah presented figures to bolster his claims of decreased crime in the state: he said that under the BJP government UP has seen a drop of 70% in dacoity, 69% in armed loot, 30% in murder, and 22.5% in dowry death.

Farmers’ protests against the now-repealed laws had seen widespread participation of farmers from western UP, including from Saharanpur.

While the repealed laws found no mention in their speeches, the two leaders claimed that there has been an improvement in making payments to sugarcane farmers.